In-flight Irritation

I’m a huge
Neil Diamond fan.He’s opening a new
tour in St. Paul
in a few weeks and I’m holding out hope that I can get a ticket, and that I’ll
be in town when he’s here.My wife
doesn’t understand Neil Diamond, but she’s a bit younger than I am and she
didn’t know who Mary Tyler Moore was either, so what can you do?Neil wrote a song called “Beautiful
Noise” and while it wasn’t one of his most popular songs, it was one that
I really loved as a boy.According to
him, a Beautiful Noise is:

“Like
the clickity-clack

Of a train on the tracks

It’s got rhythm to spare.“

I was
thinking about that song on the plane to Denver
this afternoon.You see, I don’t handle
noises that repeat without rhythm very well.I’m talking about a noise that repeats itself with random occurrence
that builds in irritation.From the
galley on this plane I was hearing a “TINK” noise that was driving me
crazy.“TINK,” then “TINK
TINK TINK,” followed by 12 seconds of silence before, “TINK TINK…
TINK!” After what seemed like an eternity, and with a slight headache starting to build, I put down my book and
walked into the galley to find a storage compartment door left unlatched that
was banging into the coffee pot, “TINK, TINK!”The flight attendant was blissfully unaware.I shut the little door and latched it before she looked up from her
book, “OH, was that noise bothering you?”She didn’t know the half of it… I was “this close” to solving the problem by ripping the door off it’s hinges and handing it to her.

Some sounds
in this world are absolutely unmistakable, like the sound of kids playing in
the park, or the distant cry of a seagull over the thunderous crashing of waves
on a beach.Other sounds are equally
unmistakable but hardly soothing or enjoyable.Not too long ago, I awoke from a nap in first class to the sound of
“sssssNIK, sssNIK.”In my
dreamy half-awake state I thought, “Gee, that sounds oddly like someone clipping
their toe-nails… but I’m on a plane… right??”Yep, I was and when I opened my eyes, I could
have vomited!Yes, the man next to me
had not only removed his shoes, AND his socks, but was calmly clipping his
toe-nails as if the first class cabin of an Airbus A320 was the most natural
place in the world to do a bit of personal grooming.After I calmly discussed with him the nuances
of living in a civilized world, he put his shoes back on.It’s a good thing too, because I could have
brought a mean case of flatulence to his little party had he refused to put his
nasty feet away.

Some
in-flight irritations require more creative solutions.It seems that there are a lot of people in
the world who have no idea how much they invade other people’s personal space.People, please be aware that if you pull your
in-flight carry on down from the overhead bin, and place it in your seat along
the aisle, your butt will be in
someone’s face when you bend over to retrieve whatever you’re looking
for.It’s inevitable.The more you poke around in your bag, the
longer your fellow passenger has to endure your derrière mere inches from their
drink, their face, or their lap.If I am
that lucky person, you’re liable to find an ice cube “accidentally”
dropped down the back of your pants, or I might just decide to sneeze, loudly
and forcefully.You get the idea?Put the bag on the floor, sit down, and
rummage to your heart’s content!